All praise Chicago's Wei Zhongle, experimental pop polymaths who have been developing and disfiguring their sound the turn of the decade. Set to release their latest album, The Operators, on February 16th via Self Sabotage Records, the quartet's shape-shifting grooves continue to evolve and expand, forever pushing forward into their own unique landscape of psychedelic exploration and brain-stem dripped art pop. It's becoming increasingly hard to stand out when seemingly everyone is embracing their weirder side, but there's only one Wei Zhongle.

"On Its Way," the record's first single is a warped and bubbling slice of progressive experimentation, a song that captures a pop sensibility in structure, and stays firmly rooted in the avant-garde on all other fronts. Distorted clarinet and heavily effected guitar create a twitchy melody, zigging and zagging into hypnotic depths and dropped out visions. The band balance rattling static and detached funk rhythms with seesawing melodies and infectious vocals, distorted but welcoming; like a friendly alien come to make new earthling friends. Skronks, blips, and electronic inconsistencies add character to each verse, coloring with rapid textures and vividly sputtering layers of manipulated sound.

Wei Zhongle's The Operators is out February 16th via Self Sabotage Records.